A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
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And they offer no reasonable basis for distrusting Signal, the tech that they attempt to vilify. Given said dev’s past comments, it is reasonable to infer that the reference to China presents them as an example to be followed here.
Ok, two things are happening here.
One, is that they did provide what they considered reasonable basis for distrusting Signal. Given that they thought Signal should not be trusted, the quote you posted is pretty obviously to be interpreted as: thankfully China hasn’t naively adopted a compromised communications platform with a USA intelligence backdoor. Now, if you want to say their basis for distrust is not reasonable, or is false, that’s completely fine. But in doing so it doesn’t change the author’s intent behind the quote which you posted.
Two, is that it should be pretty clear they are saying China should be followed here in a very specific and explicit way: they aren’t saying follow China in every way under the sun. It’s very obvious from context and from what is explicitly said that they mean: China’s distrust and refusal to adopt (what they consider) a platform with USA backdoors should be followed. And I think that’s an entirely reasonable statement to make. No one should naively adopt compromised communications platforms.
There is no honest reading of the quote (especially given the rest of the context of the essay leading up to the quote) that could lead someone to conclude that this particular essay is (1) advocating for and supporting China spying on its citizens and (2) advocating for other countries following China in spying on citizens. It’s pretty obvious the only honest reading of this is: “I believe Signal has USA backdoors. Given that, I’m glad China hasn’t adopted its use heavily. I also think other countries should follow China in not naively accepting such technologies”.
Again, you can disagree with the foundational reasons for distrust, and that could be very useful. But painting the essay and quote the way you (and others here) are is just intellectually dishonest. Disagree with what is actually said, not with what you imagine (or wish) was said.
Key of the previous comment is reasonable. One might as well say that Trump provided a reasonable basis for denying the election results, or that climate deniers are being reasonable in denying the wealth of evidence supporting the idea of man-made climate change. If we’re willing to reject abjectly idiotic claims in one case, we should be rejecting them across the board whether we like the politics of the person in question or not.
TL;DR: The author is engaging in agenda driven conspiracy porn which they know or should know is false. As such, it is reasonable to assume that they’re either willfully ignorant or acting in bad faith.